Windows on ARM - Will WOA WOW?

When I decided to name this thread, I was actually thinking of the iconic "Will it Blend?" internet meme of several years ago. Undoubtedly it will be a hot mess, but will it be cute and cuddly, or a porcupine?

Let's use this thread as rumor central as well as what we want to see or expect to see. For me, I'm hoping this leads to our iPad Pro - a Windows device the size and weight of the iPad Pro 10.5, but with Windows goodness, 4-8gb RAM, up to 512GB SSD (REAL SSD - no eMMC variants, I don't care how "improved" they may be), full time UNLOCKED LTE, smart keyboard like cover...you know, Apple without APPLE (the big head know it all we will tell you what you want/need crowd).

If they don't, Apple, with iOS 11 (probably 11.1 or 11.2) may permanently take the real tablet market away from Microsoft (leaving 2-in-1's behind). It's frightening how much I can get done on the iPP 9.7 even with iOS 10 thanks to Microsoft's iOS software versions...

Question One - will it even get off the ground with Intel's not so veiled threat to sue Qualcomm for patent violations if they enable Windows on ARM? (Now that is clearly a gross over-simplification of what Intel is alleging, so all you patent lawyers and engineers out there put your long knives away - but it is the practical effect of what Intel intends to do so keep your comments to that end result).

For what I need (want) Windows Mobile would have been good enough if they added support for a pen. All I want is a 7 or 8 inch device that has LTE, pen, decent camera, boots as fast as a phone and loads OneNote as fast as a phone. Of course support for the mobile office apps too. I don't need to run everything that runs on a PC. Looking for something that fits in my back pocket when I'm on a job site so I can take photos and notes.

The 6" screen on a Note isn't big enough and I don't want to be carrying around that size phone when I'm not working. I was planning to buy the ipad pad pro mini in June but that never happened. That's would be exactly what I want.

Nadella isn't stupid and doesn't seem like an arrogant enough guy to take MS this far with WoA risking the whole thing on a patent battle with Intel who has deep pockets to support it in court. It's a non-issue. Either MS has a way around it or a licensing deal is in the works with Intel. I'm not smart enough to understand, or interested enough in the details to learn all the details so long knife here.

If they can get 11-12 hours of constant battery out of the device, with at least two USB-C ports(one always available when charging) it could be a real winner. I'd also like to see two keyboard options one type cover, like the current models and the other say something like a thin-ish Surfacebook dock it could have something for everyone. However, they need to be using the next major model that comes after the SD835(845?).

As the 835 supports QC 4 and PD2 it would be ideal for my dream machine.
8" 1920x1440 8GB RAM 256GB SSD, Windows 10 Pro, 1 USB-C 3.2 port centered on the long side for a dockingstation.

I can use it for media consumption and when I enter the office I plug it into the "big" usb-c dockingstation and everything gets connected.
The 835 ( and the 845 ) have enough power so they are fine for everything I need them for.

As the 835 supports QC 4 and PD2 it would be ideal for my dream machine.
8" 1920x1440 8GB RAM 256GB SSD, Windows 10 Pro, 1 USB-C 3.2 port centered on the long side for a dockingstation.

I can use it for media consumption and when I enter the office I plug it into the "big" usb-c dockingstation and everything gets connected.
The 835 ( and the 845 ) have enough power so they are fine for everything I need them for.

Nope, Intel-only thus far. AFAIK, Qualcomm's mobile SoCs don't even support PCIe 3.0.
We also don't know if there are ever going to be AMD mainboards paired with TB3.

I seriously doubt Intel is going to move a finger to support TB3 on a competing platform. With Intel integrating TB3 support into their CPUs, this would be even more unlikely.

As for the "WOW" in the thread title, I doubt we will have a wow-effect. I guess the benefits of ARM will only be fully evident with WOA if you are also going to use it only the way you are handling a smartphone. Great efficiency with multimedia, and all kind of mobile data stuff and games designed for it, but I doubt it will be awesome with desktop software. If Windows/desktop software could run super-fast on a power-sipping CPU, we wouldn't have U-class or HQ-class with such high TDPs.

So I think those WOA devices will be good for consumption but not so much for (heavy-duty) creation. The hardware benefit of a much smaller mainboard will probably be used for lighter, thinner devices instead of for big batteries.

@FZelle I didn't mean to imply that all desktop software needs more power. For software that needs not much resources WOA will certainly be fine. I mean that the average user, or the majority of users would probably at some point experience that it is not that powerful.

In any way, more competition is always good, so let's hope Intel is throwing just pebbles into the way and not giant boulders.